I wrote this in 1968, while I was living with Fred. It’s undated in my journal
I don’t know where to start. It seemed as though the volcano was going to blow last night. I wanted to smash a window or something — perhaps because of Martin Luther King’s death? Where is a quiet place…
What — what — pieces coming out in fits & starts — like pieces of vomit flying in all directions because I can’t channel myself toward a toilet — and vomit the whole mess & get rid of it so it doesn’t have to sit around in there — rotting & multiplying.
What’s in the vomit, the rumbling magma of the volcano — can i look ? easily — long years of lonely, of being different, of being intelligent and sensitive, yet having no reassurance from outside that any of these things were valuable. [(fred loves me) (crossed out) NO HE DOESN’T] My parents always saying “Don’t think you’re so great”, never encouraging or praising, my father always focussing on tiny details as the basis for criticism so I think if i can clear up all the bad tiny details i’ll be alright and this keeps me so uptight the whole self is bound in fetters and cannot grow or be easy and free. And then i clear up detail after detail — i no longer look at my bad skin or my big ears, but my self image is of the ugly adolescent — now i see details in my behavior that point out my selfishness, my closed-in-ness, my clumsiness and blindness — do i know how to care for another human being? The convoluted wanderings of the dungeons of the castle i live (?) in — or defend vociferously. Who’s down there? what ghosts wander? My drunken mother bearing her heavy cross while the rest of us do the real work. and a dark and guilty ghost stalks after her, whispering to me, you could have done something you could still do something…
No, its not coming today. I’m just going over old ground — and if that’s all it is i might as well forget about it & try to live positively in spite of it.
Comment from today: I often do this, fail to appreciate what I am writing. I thought this didn’t have enough flow and passion in it. But now I see it as a very accurate analysis of my childhood and how it affected me. At that time, I didn’t know about the trauma, and I believed that what my parents said had some truth in it.